Banana Luck

Banana Luck

If you know a diehard angler, chances are that you know someone who is superstitious.  Fishermen are a strange brew, and some of the lucky elements which accompany anglers during an excursion are mind numbing.  Special hats, rabbit feet, pregame meals, or kissing the first fish of the day are some common practices.

This past weekend, I fished in the Mercury National Walleye Tournament in Fond du Lac, WI with my partner Mark Dorow.  Our day one performance was subpar, like the majority of the 300 team field.  At the end of the day, we only had two weighable fish. This could not be repeated for day two.

After evaluating the day, I ran through the choices I had made while piloting the boat.  Every decision was scrutinized internally from our selected locations, speed of the presentations, size of presentation, water clarity, weather conditions and etc.  Mark and I discussed the day, and only could come up with a few tweaks for improvement.  Maybe we just had a stretch of bad luck.  Maybe the fish just were not biting.  I concluded that it must have been bad luck.

Over the evening as I prepared the boat for the next day, I looked hard at all the items on the boat which may have been holding some bad karma.  Item number one was identified:  My blue rain suit had to go.  Every time it was on the boat-- it rained (Maybe it was because I only stored it on the boat when the forecast called for rain).  Item removed.

As I replaced line on many of the reels from the day’s activity, I noticed that my “lucky rod” had not made the journey on Saturday.  That’s it!!  How could I forget Old Faithful on tournament day?  Now I understood the issue.  The old Pfulegger rod was inserted into the rod locker, and it was time to get some sleep.

Sunday morning arrived, and I picked up Mark at his house.  After loading his gear, he ran back to the house to grab his breakfast – two bananas.  I bolted out of the truck and stopped him in his driveway.  The look of “what the heck” was written all over his face.  I told him that no bananas are allowed on my boat!  Bananas have been a bad omen for fishermen since the 1700’s.  Most professional anglers fear the fruit, some going as far as not allowing anything with a banana reference on the boat.  This includes Banana Republic clothing, Fruit of the Loom underwear, or Banana Boat sunscreen.  Mark ate his bananas at the curb before departure.

After a slow start to the day, I hooked up with a keeper sized walleye which we lost at the boat.  It came on my lucky rod, but it was obvious we had not cured our bad fortune.    The next cast resulted in a thunderous hit on my jig.  A fish with large shoulders was shaking my world.  Mark informed me that my lucky rod was about to snap.  Poof….it was in two pieces.  On the end of the line, a sheephead.  After extracting the pieces of graphite out of my hand, my lucky rod was laid to rest in the rod locker.  We now had no hope.

Grabbing another rod, I started pitching jigs again.  I could not get my mind off of my dearest deceased friend, until a walleye wacked my jig on my second cast.  A keeper!  In the live well it went.  Suddenly a flurry of activity occurred, and we netted approximately 15 legal walleyes in the next two hours.  At one time we had three walleyes on our four poles at one time.  We made a huge jump in the standings after weighing 5 nice fish at the end of the day on Sunday, but we did not overcome our slow start on Saturday.

In reflection, I have to ask….was having my lucky rod break enough to allow me some good karma?  Was my lucky rod really unlucky?  Or was it the removal of the raincoat, the prevention of the banana, or was something else? For the last 3 days I have struggled with these questions.  This weekend’s tournament, Otter Street, must not be a repeat of the past Saturday’s bad karma.  I just need to determine what has created my good luck by Friday Night.  In retroflection, I think we just found the fish.  Regardless, my raincoat is not going on the boat this weekend.